Boy Scout Merit Badge – Personal Management
May 12, 2012
Both of my sons are Boy Scouts. One is working hard to become an Eagle Scout in the very near future. In order to become an Eagle Scout, every Boy Scout is required to complete a minimum number of merit badges. The Scout is also required to complete some specific merit badges, including the Personal Management Merit Badge.
You can find the Personal Management Merit Badge here: http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Personal_Management
Since my son, Jonathan, has been working through this badge, I also have become familiar with it. I think it is a great tool for any parent to teach more about money to her kid. The badge teaches about and reviews a number of topics, including:
- Making a major family purchase
- Budgeting
- General sentiments about money
- Saving and investing
- The stock market
- Credit and debt
- Future career
If you need some ideas regarding money lessons to work on with your kids, take a stab at this merit badge. We will talk about some of these things here in the next few weeks.
Justine
Jon has been working on his Family Life merit badge for Boy Scouts. He has to complete two projects within the merit badge requirements, both of which must help the family. One of Jon’s projects was to clean out our garage. The floor of our garage was littered with outdoor toys that sat in a big pile, collecting dust. The kids have grown and they don’t use many of the toys anymore.
So we asked Jon to clean the garage. Part of the task was to sort through the toys and give the ones that were still in good condition to charity.
We regularly clean our house out of things that we don’t use anymore. We have a favorite charity in town that we like to take our things to. We don’t take our used items to Goodwill – we aren’t sure where our stuff really ends up. We do take our items to a local church and preschool in a neighborhood where the residents are so happy to see the things that we give and use the items right away.
Jon and the other kids know all about the charity, about being philanthropic, about recycling things that we don’t use anymore for the benefit of others.
My kids also know about the related tax benefits.
Jon, with this project, was required to document each item that we were giving away and putting a price tag on it. He knew that the value had to be a ‘garage-sale value’ as recommended by the Internal Revenue Service. And Jon knew that this step was important because our family would get to take a deduction on our income taxes for the items we had given away.
So Jon dutifully listed each scooter and each parachute and each hockey stick, applying a value to them.
And now I am incorporating those figures into our family’s tax return.
Thank you, Jon!
These times
February 5, 2009
We have lots of stuff to cover in this blog. All kinds of lessons and pointers and ideas.
But this week, as the economic news gets worse and worse, it seems rather inappropriate to dive into more lessons. Rather, the feelings and sentiments of what we are all going through seem more relevant.
And they are relevant to this blog because much of what we are dealing with in these times are about money. About losing jobs, losing credit, having to lay employees off, determining not to make a purchase, having to visit the food bank.
My two sons, Jon and Max, are Boy Scouts. This weekend, in my home county, the Boy Scouts of America are running a food drive. It is called “Scouting for Food”. The boys participate in this food drive every year. The boys compete amongst each other in their troop, weighing the food they have collected in order to win accolades from the troop.
But it is so different this year. We as a family know that the need for food among families in our county has escalated dramatically. It has become so much more imperative that my boys get out there to collect food for the local food bank. Not to win praise, but to help ameliorate this crisis.
So we’ve been talking about this food drive all week. I expect my boys to work their butts off for this food drive this weekend.
Justine
These family discussions provide valuable lessons to my boys about money. About how families need money for food, and that there are more families who don’t have enough money to buy food in this economic environment.
In teaching our kids about money, there are so many paths to take. Or so many paths that lead you to places unknown.
Justine
